Shyanne South always had a special bond with her brothers. She never would have expected the tragedy that has now turned her family’s lives upside down.
On Wednesday, Oct. 9, Shyanne’s older brother Seth South was arrested, accused of murdering his younger brothers Scotty, 17, and Sebastian Bass, 16, inside a Washington State home.
“My family and I are still in shock, we’re trying to understand what led up to this and where to go moving forward here,” Shyanne tells PEOPLE. “We’re trying to understand the emotions that come with grieving.”
Seth was charged with two counts of murder and one count of assault, according to the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office. It is not immediately clear if he’s entered a plea.
Charging documents obtained by KIRO, Fox 13 and the Kitsap Sun allege that the 23-year-old suspect called 911 and claimed his brother had slit his own throat. The dispatcher then reportedly heard fighting in the background.
When deputies arrived at the home, they found the bodies of two “young adults,” the sheriff’s office says. Shyanne identified the victims as Scotty and Sebastian.
Scotty, who would have turned 18 in January, was on track to finish high school this year before pursuing his dream of becoming a park ranger, having loved both fishing and camping, his sister says.
An animal lover, Scotty spent considerable time feeding and taking care of two goats his parents had recently adopted and he also helped train the family’s husky mix.
“Scotty was very family-oriented,” Shyanne says. “He just wanted to be around my parents, his siblings and grandparents.”
Sebastian had just turned 16 in July, and was in his sophomore year of high school. Like his brother, he was devoted to animals and had just adopted a kitten weeks before his death.
The younger Bass brother was also an avid collector. His sister says that one year for Christmas he asked their mom if she could find him any vintage clocks and radios.
“My parents were in the middle of enrolling [Sebastian] in driver’s ed and it was looking like within the next six months he would have finally had his own license and been able to drive his friends around,” Shyanne says.
When Sebastian was little, he used to tip-toe into his sister’s room and ask if he could sleep there. Shyanne, who turns 22 on Monday, shared a special bond with Scotty, too. When she was in the third grade, Scotty had just started kindergarten and the two attended the same school. Both siblings were fairly shy and so every day they would sit together and talk under a playground slide during recess.
“We’d do the same thing pretty much every day for the next couple of years, just hang out with each other,” Shyanne recalls. “I’d like to say it helped him, but I think it would have been a lot tougher on me to go to school [without him], honestly.”
Shyanne says there was no indication that what happened on Oct. 9 was ever possible. Now living in California, Shyanne says she first learned that her family was worried about something when her mom called and expressed concern about Seth’s well-being.
Initially, Shyanne says her family believed Seth had disappeared and had possibly harmed himself. Just days before the alleged murders, Shyanne says she had talked to Seth on the phone and that everything seemed normal.
“For 23 years of his life, he loved us all so much and he was a very generous person,” Shyanne says of Seth. “It’s astonishing … up until Wednesday nobody could have ever thought anything.”
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Shyanne has started a GoFundMe to help her family in the wake of an unimaginable tragedy. So far, it has raised over $17,000.
The funds will in part go toward helping the grieving parents find a new home after deciding they couldn’t stay in the home where they had once lived with their children, says Shyanne, who also noted that none of the money from the GoFundMe would go toward Seth’s legal defense.
“I’m here trying to support a move for them to a place where they will be able to properly heal and handle all the emotions they need to,” Shyanne says. “It truly goes to rebuilding someone’s entire life.”